Psychiatric Survivors at Mental Health Conference Appeal for
Justice!

Justin Dart reports:

By now you have read news reports of the June 7th White House Conference on Mental Health.
It was chaired by Tipper Gore and addressed by the President, the First Lady, the Vice
President, Mike Wallace, several service providers, family members and people who have
experienced psychiatric disabilities. The conference was attended by more than 500 members
of government and the psychiatric community.

Not generally reported in the news was an important breakout session on civil rights
chaired by Assistant Attorney General Bill Lann Lee and Senator Joe Lieberman, coordinated
by Jonathan Young and attended by 40-50 persons. Included were several psychiatric
survivor advocates for full self-determination no incarceration, no abuse, no forced
treatment, full, free choice.

This group, led by Sally Zinman, Joe Rogers, J. Rock Johnson and others, was so eloquent
that, although undoubtedly in the minority, they dominated the dialogue.

Congratulations to these patriots. Special congratulations to Jonathan Young on his
outstanding efforts to ensure that a number of strong psychiatric survivor advocates were
invited to the Conference, and that civil rights was covered by a breakout session. He
deserves a gold medal.

While the Conference could have included far more focus on self-determination and far more
advocates for self-determination, it was a strong step in the right direction beginning to
bring the subject of psychiatric disability out of the closet.

Our modest victory at the civil rights breakout session demonstrates once again that,
united on the offense, even a small number of us can communicate truth with power.

Following is a statement authored by Sally Zinman and others, and signed by several
psychiatric survivor advocates who attended the Conference. Following also are the remarks
made by Justin Dart, the first advocate speaker at the civil rights breakout session.

Press Release

Consumers/Survivors Speak Out

We Consumers/Survivors at the White House Conference on Mental Health thank the President
and Mrs. Clinton, and the Vice President and Mrs. Gore for holding a Conference on issues
critical to our survival as people with psychiatric disabilities. We commend them for
involving so many of us in planning and attending the Conference because to be effective,
all mental health policy making and program planning must involve those served. We want
nothing about us, without us. No one else can speak for us. The failure to ask us what we
need and what works had led to huge investment in programs that not only do not work well
but also can
actively harm us.

We urge Mrs. Gore, as the Chair of the Conference, to encourage system wide
consumer/survivor involvement from this day forward. This conference is an example that
reflects a model of excellence. It must become the norm for consumer/survivor
participation in this country.

We Consumers/Survivors urge Mrs. Gore to take a leadership role in eliminating forced
psychiatric treatment. Freedom is the fundamental and organizing principle of our country
and yet it is still being denied to people with psychiatric disabilities. Recovery cannot
occur in an environment of coercion. Therapeutic relationships cannot exist in an
environment of coercion. A landmark research study, the Well Being Project administered by
consumers/survivors found that 55% of consumers interviewed who had experienced forced
treatment reported that fear of forced treatment caused them to reject treatment.

We ask Mrs. Gore to stand with us now against the use of seclusion or restraint. The
safety of consumers and professionals should be a paramount organizing principle
underlying all system reform efforts and is the first real step towards the elimination of
forced treatment.

Consumers/survivors should not be held responsible for being non-compliant to non-existing
or harmful services. If voluntary services of the nature that consumers/survivors wanted
and needed were available and accessible, the concept of involuntary treatment would be
obsolete.

We Consumers/Survivors urge those at the White House Conference on Mental Health to share
the vision of a healing-focused mental health service system that offers a wide menu of
services which address the needs of the whole person in an environment of freedom, choice
and equality. We ask Mrs. Gore to share this vision with us.

Force is not the way to deal with people with psychiatric disabilities. It sabotages the
potential of recovery for people with psychiatric disabilities. The consequence of forced
treatment is that people avoid the very services they need to survive. Coercion frequently
results in violence and abuse to people who are receiving services.

Expansion of forced treatment will not stop noncompliance; damage left in the wake of
forced treatment is the reason for noncompliance. Outpatient commitment is a false
solution to a complex public policy issue, and it simply will not work. The truth is that
many of the services currently available are not helpful to people; government efforts
would be better spent on offering an improved array of services that actually promote
healing and recovery.

What makes a difference is the scope, flexibility, responsiveness and coordination of
community based psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation services.

The Consumers/Survivors attending this Conference hold that traditional mental health
services, particularly medication, are not enough, but that additional services such as
housing, vocational training and employment, income maintenance, medical care, substance
abuse services and rehabilitation are essential for recovery. These services have not been
funded in the community to any level compatible to the need. De-institutionalization did
not fail; it was never completed.

We urge Mrs. Gore to support expanded funding for community services that address the
problems of the whole person and, particularly, self-help programs. Peer support and
client-run services, developed by consumers/survivors over the last 30 years, are among
most effective community programs. The underlying philosophy of peer support is that the
best helpers are those who have experienced similar problems. In client-run programs,
people with psychiatric disabilities see others like themselves in positions of
responsibility, as role models, and thus have more confidence in themselves. These client
designed, client-run programs, in the form of drop-in centers, housing opportunities,
crisis teams, advocacy projects and many other kinds of initiatives attract people who
have been traumatized and alienated by traditional mental health services.

Recently, isolated incidents of violence around the country are seized upon and publicized
in the media and attributed to untreated mental illness. In this way, people who have had
psychiatric diagnoses are being scapegoated as targets for societys fear. However,
research through the MacArthur Foundation has shown that a label of metal illness does not
increase the likelihood of violence.

The fact is that we have an untreated mental health system where it is easier to blame the
victims than to help us heal. The real dangers we face are prejudice, discrimination
and violence within and outside the treatment system.

This presidential conference the very fact it is being held is a landmark of progress.
Congratulations to the President on this gathering and on his June 4th executive order.
Special congratulations to Tipper Gore and Jonathan Young on their hard work especially on
their inclusion here and by satellite - of grassroots self-advocates who are not always
included in deliberations on psychiatric disability policy.

I am proud to be here today with so many authentic patriots: Jonathan, Bill Lann Lee,
Senator Lieberman, Liz Savage, Sally Zinman, Joe Rogers, J. Rock Johnson and many others.
Mr. Chairman, Senator, I submit to you for the record statements of a few patriots who are
not present. Judi Chamberlin, David Oaks, Janet Foner.

While we have differences of opinion, I believe we are all here to plan, to appeal for, to
begin to create an America where every person with a psychiatric disability is empowered
to achieve his or her full potential for self-determination and for a life of quality and
dignity in the mainstream of society. This empowerment must include families, friends,
advocates and service providers, who often share not only the pain and the expense, but
also the discrimination associated with psychiatric disability.

I believe this can be done.

1. By uniting to destroy vicious stigma.

2. By uniting to expand law that protects civil and human rights. Security, free choices
in all things.

3. By uniting to work toward comprehensive, quality, affordable psychiatric care that
gives every person with a psychiatric disability free choice about providers and
treatments. No coercion, no forced treatment. Consumer controlled, peer oriented services
have been successful. They should be further developed and adequately funded.

Colleagues, this is very personal to me. I have suffered depression. My beautiful mother
and three other family members with psychiatric disabilities have taken their own lives
rather than face the stigma.

Let us rise above our differences. Let us embrace each other in that most profound love
for the sacred value of each human life. Let us lift our eyes to the dream of Thomas
Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Let us unite in one voice: America,
America, join us in keeping the sacred pledge: Liberty and justice for all.